1. Field of the Invention
Methods, apparatuses and systems consistent with the present invention relate to generating an on-screen display using 3D graphics, in devices without high quality 3D graphics accelerators (e.g., digital televisions and set top boxes).
2. Description of the Related Art
Digital televisions (DTVs) and set top boxes (STBs) use an on-screen display to deliver information such as channel and program information. In general, 2D graphics are used for menus and text in the on-screen display. However, on-screen menus using 3D graphics are required to increase the efficiency of information delivery and to improve various visual effects.
When on-screen menus using 3D graphic images are generated by a general 3D graphics processing system, a 3D graphic on-screen display is generated by using 3D graphic data describing the motion of 3D menus and an additional 3D graphics accelerator for processing the 3D graphic data. However, a 3D graphics accelerator is expensive, so a device such as a DTV or STB, which performs minimal 3D graphics processing, is not usually fitted with a 3D graphics accelerator.
Therefore, a method of sequentially displaying a series of 2D images and video data generated from 3D graphics has been proposed. However, the series of 2D images and the video data comprise a large amount of data, so that the 3D graphics processing system for processing the series of 2D images and the video data also requires a large memory. In addition, it is difficult to simultaneously display the series of 2D images generated from the 3D graphics and 2D graphics on the same display screen.
Accordingly, a method and a system are needed for effectively generating an on-screen display having 3D graphic effects, in the devices without high quality 3D graphics accelerators and without a large memory.